Augmented reality denotes a new environment created by combining a real world viewed by a user with his or her eyes with a virtual world having additional information. Research and development into an augmented reality system in which a real environment and a virtual environment are merged has been conducted in the United States and Japan since the late 1990s. Augmented reality, which is the concept of supplementing the real world with the virtual world, uses a virtual environment created with computer graphics, but the main entity thereof is the real environment. Computer graphics function to additionally provide information required for the real environment.
Further, even for a transparent display device for simultaneously displaying the real environment and the virtual environment, a transparent display device using a transparent electronic element has been developed with the development of recent display technology. Such a transparent display device is implemented by stacking a transparent electrode, transparent semiconductor, a transparent dielectric, etc. on a transparent glass or a transparent plastic material. A luminous surface is implemented using an Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED), an inorganic Light Emitting Diode (LED), or a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD).
In a ship navigation system, conventional technology provides a safe ship navigation method using an Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) having wave information, which precisely measures wave information through radar, and shares such wave information with the ECDIS while displaying the wave information via the ECDIS, and which can improve the stability of ship navigation based on the wave information and ECDIS information, as disclosed in Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0037443 entitled “Safe ship navigation method using ECDIS having wave information.”
However, in order to improve the stability of such ship navigation, there is a limitation in using only the ECDIS, and there is a need to apply an augmented reality system so as to secure the stability of ships and extend the efficiency and precision of ship navigation by simultaneously displaying various types of information related to the real environment and pieces of virtual information required for the navigation of a ship and by helping the captain of the ship make a decision in an emergency.